TORC Press Plans for 2012

Welp, it's a New Year (thank God), so it's time to start concocting a plan of attack for the newly born year. Here's a quick look at what I'll be doing, without giving away too much or announcing anything before I'm 100% sure that's what I'm gonna do.

1) Wrap Up TORC Press Era 3: Era 3 has been the shortest but most prolific era in TORC Press History. It's also been fairly chaotic and full of false starts. Sales have been all over the board, and despite my best efforts, my flagship book, "The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club", has failed to gain or sustain a visible or vocal readership (although I would like to say that those of you that have supported HFSAC since it began back in 2009, Thank You Very Much. I sincerely appreciate the support you've shown the book. Now if only there were more of you). Sales aside, I feel like I've said what I need to say with this Era. So I'm wrapping things up and moving on to Era 4. In order to finish Era 3, I need to complete Issues 16-17 of "The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club" and Issues 5-7 of "Cosmic Love". Issue 7 of "Cosmic Love" will serve as the "Bridge" between Eras 3 and 4.

2) Lock Things Down to Two Semi-Regular Books and a Webcomic: Okay, this one may be a bit premature, considering I have thought and rethought this over and over and over again. Basically, as of right now, I want to do two, Print, Adults Only Comic Books on a Semi-to Bi-Monthly basis. One will be in Super Psychedelic Hi-Fi Mind Blowing Color, and the Other will be in Brutal, Ugly, Dark as Dark, Black & White. To complement the two books, I'll be doing a new General Audiences/More or Less All Ages Webcomic that will HOPEFULLY serve as a catch all for all of my other ideas and PREVENT me from trying to start up a new book every month. The Plan will be to eventually do a Print version of the webcomic that will contain strips that were Online as well as Completely Original Material that wasn't on the webcomic. Sort of a best of both worlds type of thing. I won't be talking about any of the aforementioned books until they are ready to launch, although I will say that I intend to try to launch the New Webcomic on my Birthday, which is February 9th.

3) No Holds Barred: You might have noticed that I mentioned that the two above books are gonna be Adults Only. Not "Mature Readers" or whatever. Basically, I just want the freedom to do whatever I want, Audience be Damned (no offense to my audience, of course). If I wanna get freaky deaky then I can get as freaky as I wanna get. I'm tired of reigning myself in. This is Underground Comix, damnit! R. Crumb never worried about content restrictions. Why should I?

4) Era 4 is Gonna Be Weeee-iiiirrddd: Um. I do odd well. I do odd better than I do normal. "The Clown and Tea Cup Show" was one of my best sellers this year, and that series is super weird. So, I'm just gonna rip the knob off the dial and see how far down the old Rabbit Hole I can go this year. Let's get just super bizarre.

5) Having said that, I'm gonna wear my Old Fashioned Comix Love on my Sleeve: So, now that I've got you thinking that I'm gonna create a bunch of William S. Burroughs inspired Porn, let me take a moment to say that this year will still be about Superheroes. Or at least my variety of oddball superheroes anyway. My comix are about the Battle Between Good and Evil, and I stand on the side of the Angels, even in the darkest of times. I love Hero Costumes and Superpowers and Punching and Explosions and Crossovers (although I'm tired of the Big Epic variety we get all the time nowadays...) and all that crazy stuff. Just because I'm gonna get odd this year doesn't mean I'm abandoning my Kirby roots. Oh no.

Other than that, I've got some interesting strategies this year that I'm not prepared to talk about quite yet.

Also, I'm already shoring up my Convention Schedule for 2012. I'm currently confirmed for Three Shows, and I plan on adding at least Three to Five Shows before the Year is up. I'm excited, I am.